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I haven’t seen Belmont’s campus since December.

So one day after work this week, I decided it was about time to take a pilgrimage to my college stomping grounds. On a whim, I pulled into the Curb parking garage and sat there listening to Tim McGraw’s “Please Remember Me” and looking out over my beautiful campus, construction cranes and all.

And I felt – you guessed it – an eighty-foot wave (much like these) of nostalgia roll on into the crevices of my heart where feelings reside.

As I was wallowing in nostalgia (which consisted of “wow a lot has happened in the past three years on this campus” and “WOW AM I REALLY GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE IN DECEMBER?!”), I thought two things: hey, this Tim McGraw song seeps nostalgia and, hey, this would make a good blog post.

So I’ve put together a collection of songs that subliminally have placed the word “nostalgia” somehow within them because it’s impossible to listen to these tunes and not feel some weird concoction of nostalgic feelings.

Disclaimer: I’m aware each person has their own memories attached to certain songs (woohoo, another reason music is the best!), so perhaps some of these will feel nostalgic only to me. But hopefully this shan’t be the case!

1. "Please Remember Me" // Tim McGraw

For some reason '90s country songs have this weird nostalgic air about them, this one especially. My guess is the steel guitar has something to do with it.

The music video features a young Tim McGraw walking around a deserted beach at dusk wearing all black and his signature cowboy hat. His memories of the past are so strong, they’re actually manifesting themselves as video snippets in the sand. Like wut! That’s some crazy nostalgia!

2. "Your Love" // Keane

Pretty sure when Tim Rice-Oxley of Keane wrote this song, he was in the unforgiving pits of nostalgia and decided to make it his sole mission to pull everyone down with him. His mission proved to be wildly successful.

No, I’m so serious. This has to be the single most nostalgic song on the face of this EARTH. He sings about driving around, playing over the agony of a deceased relationship and wondering if his old flame still comes around to the fallen couple’s old haunts. He’s basically creeping on his past but in a beautifully weepy way.

“I know they’re only ghosts and memories that I’m clutching at/Maybe I’m reaching back for something I never had.”

Eesh! I’m so tempted to post every single lyric from this song and put the word NOSTALGIA in all caps next to each line, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just let you listen to the song yourself.

3. Any Bon Iver Song Ever

Fancy taking a walk down memory lane and dwelling on the fact that you’ll never be able to relive those moments ever again for as long as you live? Good news! Bon Iver has you covered! His first album even has the words "forever ago" in the title!

Seriously though, that secluded cabin in the woods proved to be a fertile breeding ground for nostalgia (inspiration) for Justin Vernon. No matter what the song’s about or whatever nonsensical and inaudible word he’s singing, it still somehow sounds so incredibly - can you guess what word I’m about to type? – nostalgic.

But the song I chose for this list is "Wolves (Act I and II)." I've always thought this song was beautiful, and I kindly request that a choir sing it and post it to YouTube, please. The last two minutes of the song consist of Justin singing "what might have been lost" over and over again, so for this list, it's perfect.

4. "Ghosts That We Knew" // Mumford and Sons

The title pretty much says it all. The bridge is really quite lovely if I do say so myself.

5. "The Boys of Summer" // Don Henley

I have no specific life’s moment attached to this song, yet every time I listen to it some sort of childhood memory accompanies it. Is that just me or … ? It’s a classic NOSTALGIA song and also a classic 80s music video. Rock on, little slick-haired drummer kid. That man with the pencil looks like he’s really deep in nostalgic thought, ya know.

P.S. It’s nearly impossible to find this video online (um why?). This one is the best I could find, yet it cuts off the music at the very end. But I assume everyone is familiar with this song already.

6. "These Streets" // Bastille

“These streets of yours, you can keep them/I don’t want them/They pull me back and I surrender to the memories I run from.”

And that’s just the first few lines!

Bastille has quickly become one of my favorite bands and they should be one of your favorite bands, too. It helps that they put on a killer show. Anyways, this song is fantastic, and it works well in this list because it’s all about NOSTALGIA and avoiding places because of not-so-great memories and all that jazz.

“All that’s left behind is a shadow on my mind.” … aka nostalgia.

7. "Love is the End" // Keane

So this beautiful piano ballad begins with the line of “now is the time of our comfort and plenty” and you have hope. You think, wow, this sounds like it has the potential to be a happy song.

Next comes a description of a lovely moment, involving happy people happily singing and happily putting feet on the happy dashboard and it sounds happy, happy, happy. There’s even the line “nothing goes wrong anymore.” So at this point you just know there’s no way this song could be anything but happy.

Then, after this quaint description, lead vocalist Tom Chaplain sings: “These are the things I want to remember you by.”

And you’re like… okay, this is beginning to meander into dangerous territory: NOSTALGIA.

Then WHAM. In comes the line “they won’t come again, because love is the end.” And you’re like really, Keane, AGAIN?! Another song that makes me want to lock my heart away in a slimy old chest like Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean ?!

But then you laugh at yourself because you realize nearly every Keane song has an air of nostalgia and sadness, and c’mon, that’s kinda why you like the band anyways.

Point is: this song is awesome and one of my favorites. Tom’s voice always sounds angelic, but it sounds especially angelic in this one.

“Love is the End” seems an appropriate ending point. I could list several more, but I don’t want to get too crazy on you, faithful reader. Special shout out to the peeps who feel obligated to read this because you’re affiliated to me in some manner whether by blood or friendship (aka my faithful readers).

You know what’s fun? Participation. So feel free to share any nostalgic songs in the comments below or whatever because, let’s face it, we all love ourselves a good trip down memory lane via a song or two.

I have a new job, one that requires me to be at a desk for the majority of the day. Endless desk time = endless music time. This has given me increased opportunity to become unhealthily-obsessed with many, many songs this July.